Collier Prize Symposium on State Government Accountability

Maribel Pérez Wadsworth is president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, as well as a trustee of the foundation. She is the first woman and the seventh president to lead the foundation. She is the former president of Gannett Media and publisher of USA Today. Starting as an editorial assistant with the Associated Press in 1994, Wadsworth’s career evolved from reporter and editor roles to a key position in Gannett’s corporate team, where she led the company’s digital transformation. As president of the USA Today Network and later publisher of USA Today, she led a team of more than 4,000 journalists in more than 200 communities. During her tenure, Gannett newsrooms were recognized with five Pulitzer Prizes.

Mike Hixenbaugh is a senior investigative reporter for NBC News. Hixenbaugh has won numerous national honors for his reporting at NBC News, including a George R. Polk Award, Edward R. Murrow Award and Peabody Award. He began his career reporting at newspapers in Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, and Texas. He was a lead reporter in “Dealing the Dead,” a year-long NBC News investigation into the body brokering industry, which took second place in the 2025 Collier Prize competition.

Grace Hauck is an investigative reporter with the Illinois Answers Project’s state investigations team. She previously worked for USA TODAY in Chicago in various roles, including breaking news, enterprise and criminal justice reporting. She led the reporting team on Strapped Down: “Restraint Chairs in Illinois’ Jails,” a project that exposed the overuse, misuse and abuse of restraint chairs in county jails across Illinois.

Alison Bethel is chief content officer and editor in chief of State Affairs, a for-profit news and information site focused on state legislatures in all 50 states. Alison is an award-winning journalist with more than 40 years of experience as a reporter, bureau chief, media executive and nonprofit leader who has worked in senior-level positions at The Boston Globe, The Detroit News, Legal Times and the Nassau Guardian in The Bahamas. Before joining State Affairs, she was vice president of corps excellence at Report for America, a non-profit initiative of The GroundTruth Project that places emerging journalists in newsrooms across America to cover untold stories and communities.  

Chris Fitzsimon is CEO and publisher of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. Chris leads the organization’s strategic direction and mission, steers fundraising efforts, defines editorial strategy, and works closely with the leadership team and Board of Directors to ensure the long-term financial sustainability and operational effectiveness. From 2004 to 2017, Fitzsimon was the founder and original director of NC Policy Watch, North Carolina’s leading online news and commentary outlet, where he led a team of seven journalists, hosted a weekly radio show and wrote a syndicated column on North Carolina politics and government.

Karen Rundlet is CEO and executive director of the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), which supports 500+ independent 501c3 news organizations across the United States. Rundlet previously served as senior director at the Knight Foundation, where she managed a more than $50 million portfolio of grants. Previously, Rundlet reported, produced and managed projects for the Miami Herald, WNBC, and WLRN in Miami. 

Margie Mason and Robin McDowell are Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporters who worked together for nearly two decades for the Associated Press in Southeast Asia before returning to the United States. In Asia, their reporting exposed slavery in the seafood industry, resulting in more than 2,000 men being freed as well as labor abuses on palm oil plantations. Back in the U.S., they exposed massive companies profiting from American prison labor, a project that won the 2025 Collier Prize for State Government Accountability. Their work has led to convictions, U.S. laws being changed, foreign import bans and U.S. companies changing their purchasing policies.